What would you like to see changed or addressed in the game? (poll)

[Vav2021]

It's easy to get a little lost in the cacophony that is players wanting change. It's only natural that people want changes in the product that they purchase, and as consumers, they do have a right to voice their desires and wants for improvement. With that being said, I would really like to see what the major issue that's plaguing the community is out of all the others. So I decided to make a poll to see what the most hot-button issue is out of all the others.


https://strawpoll.com/polls/GeZANeBlRyV

I encourage saying what you voted for and why, so that others might also come to understand the plight.

I voted for more Moderator/Staff presence. I understand the need to feel like we're not neglected as consumers, and with minimal interaction, all of the issues (big and small). I feel it would help people feel at ease, and a little more secure in their purchase of the product.

Here's to hoping that maybe the squeaky wheel gets the grease first.


Edit: Be civil. I understand that people can be passionate about their desires, but that's no reason to be a jerk to someone else because they have different focuses.

[aveyond-dreams]

I voted for story improvements. I've been around since ARR and have seen this game's lows and highs. I want Heavensward back. I want the team that was more concerned with fleshing out the world and giving credible arguments for the motivations of our antagonists rather than the team who prioritizes college slice of life scenes, giving interviews about pixie pronouns, and "battle of morals" storytelling. All while slopping together some of the worst endings possible for plot threads like the Garlean political crisis. After that experience, I have no idea what to expect from the Omega questline coming later.

You can sell me a game with obtuse gameplay like Heavensward Dark Knight so long as the story holds up - but right now both gameplay and story are suffering. The people who made the story that really gripped me and got me to start paying attention to cutscenes was (rightfully) assigned to go work on FFXVI in order to make sure the mainline series didn't suffer another blow to its reputation after the mess that was FFXV when it originally launched. FFXVI will launch with a coherent story, but whether that will be the case for 7.0 feels like it's up in the air. We're stuck with a cast that is seemingly invincible and immortal, with very little in the way of stakes or character development for the remaining Scions. A party incapable of banter, back-and-forths, unlike the trio of Alphi/Ysayle/Estinien in Heavensward and Venat/Hythlo/Hades in Elpis.

We were teased with a "newfound adventure" only for us to be thrown directly into the Void plotline and stuck again with the same tired cast. Starting Season 2 by shard hopping was the last thing that should have been considered. A complete and self-contained story on-par in scale with Heavensward, set in Meracydia, the New World, or the former Garlean territories would make for a more logical starting point than jumping head-first into the 13th.

I imagine a combination of factors led to the writing style we are seeing now, with Covid having evidently dampened their will to put characters through trying situations with all the issues people all over the world were facing. However, a story with not a whole lot going on isn't what I'm paying for here. Shadowbringers had a near constant feel of danger around the corner, this didn't hold for Endwalker with all its fluff scenes mixed in every other hour. Then we have the twitter fanart crowd who people don't seem to realize will attach themselves to the next pretty face that comes along - the moment you make the new postergirl/posterboy they will go obsess over that and forget all about the likes of G'raha Tia and Y'shtola. Then maybe those of us who are sick of these stagnant comfort characters can catch a break from them too.

[Aneshda]

I voted for Housing but there should be a second option for Apartment improvements

[AngelCheese77]

I would like to see housing improved in the way of more apartments and houses. I guess it's hard for me to believe they can't add more wards or do shards like other games (look at EverQuest2 apartments and houses for example).

But overall, I would love to have them step up and take houses away from people that bought a number of them and 'grandfathered' them in. You know who you are. One house and one apartment OR one FC house a character.

[BrokentoothMarch]

I'd love either housing fixes or improvements to the apartment system. Healers desperately need an overhaul and there's no business such a successful game suffers such limitations with two of it's own in-game races, to say nothing with how limited character creation is. It was amazing ten years ago, but it has LONG fallen into one of the worst in current times. Combat needs to be made more dynamic instead of just this "dance" people worship which is pretty much simply pattern recognition. More fight variety beyond "+5% damage" or nuke rotation done nonstop with the occasional oGCD. Status effects need to come back. The holy trinity needs to be renamed from DPS/Tank/Healer to DPS/Tank/Support. DPS should not be supports. There should be more ways to do DPS than just damage sustained then sometimes damage big (Think DoT's or an expansion on MCH's Wildfire mechanic except, you know, good). The story needs an improvement. Dynamis needs to be removed. The patch cycles cannot be longer as we already have so little repeatable content. Limited jobs needs to be revisited. Either BLU becomes a full job or they make good on their promise that Limited Jobs would be plentiful due to their divorce from regular content, but we're years later and that has been proven incredibly untrue.

That's off the top of my head.

[Eraden]

I voted for housing as well. It is amazing that for such a popular feature (as indicated by the mass stampede every time new housing is made available) there is so little actual effort made by the developers to make enough of it to meet the demand.

[Shougun]

I voted for Housing but there should be a second option for Apartment improvements

I would like to see housing improved in the way of more apartments and houses. I guess it's hard for me to believe they can't add more wards or do shards like other games (look at EverQuest2 apartments and houses for example).

But overall, I would love to have them step up and take houses away from people that bought a number of them and 'grandfathered' them in. You know who you are. One house and one apartment OR one FC house a character.

The long haul dream of mine is they can sneak all of it into the Island Sanctuary system, which I want to add I highly highly doubt will do that at the start- even though some have said it (I've seen no proof from SE itself that would be the case).

Unlocking the # lock on apartments*, getting those into the Sanctuary (with perhaps inn rooms as an alternative for those who don't want to decorate) and there after upgrading the apartments to the complete scale of power that houses have.

With the ward users structure of ownership looking like this:
(ward yard) -> (instanced internal house) < - > (island sanctuary)

Those without a ward space:
(instanced internal house) < - > (island sanctuary)

Ownership of the ward plot can be lost but not your house / island. Besides for those who want the external neighborhood experience now that everyone can feasibly own a house and it will be a less salty experience, they can add a lot of seasonal content to the ward system as further encouragement to visit them for that social experience that they're supposed to have.


*They can perhaps blend ownership of apartment into the current system so after all of this is done it's smooth. Rather than some people own a ward house internal, a FC room internal, AND an apartment- those would just be different states of upgrades that 'can' be separated by instanced space (ward yard being perhaps another state in this structure). Or in other words by owning an apartment and a house you can read it more like 'house + space upgrade' which you can opt to have connected to your house seamlessly (ish?). Like you can place a master bedroom door in your house and link it to your 'apartment', put it downstairs and it's a basement- behind a mirror for a secret portal.. etc. Or if SE gets really really fancy with their code they could make it an actual seamless upgrade (which would be cool, such that the upgrade just directly opens up space in the house).

[RyuDragnier]

It was a toss-up between gameplay and character customization for me. In the end I chose gameplay, because while we all agree Hrothgar hair needs fixing badly, they also need to do some serious quality control on their jobs. DRK and SCH need reworks, certain jobs need nerfs in certain categories (Bloodwhetting should not be per hit), job balancing needs to be a tiny bit better, etc etc. Everything else takes backseat to that, in my mind.

[Soge01]

I voted for gameplay improvement. ARR should be reconfigured into the overall tutorial part of the game where new players are taught throughout their experience in various content, like dungeons, lvl 1-30 Fates, etc what to do and how to play their specific job (Tank, Healer, DPS) and punish those who refuse to learn how to play the game.

- Bringing back enemity management for Tanks so they can learn how to keep mobs and bosses focused on them and teaching tanks when and how to use their defensive bluffs properly.

- Giving bosses and mobs the ability to more frequently cast status ailments on party members and making mobs/bosses hit harder, so Healers are required to pay more attention to what's happening to their party members and learning to immediately act accordingly.

And mobs/bosses occasionally randomly aiming at DPS with telegraphed attacks so they're forced to stay on their toes and to keep moving, and also making mobs/bosses more spongy, so DPS are forced notice if their gear is too low level for the current content they're participating in.

Heavensward then should be the "Test" part of the game, where the player, after having learned how to play in ARR is tested on how well they picked up on to play and are summarily punished in content if they haven't, so they are forced to learn to get better at the game and try again.

Stormblood and beyond should be made progressively harder after that with next to zero hand holding. Obviously, not made into nothing but hard core content, but balanced between casual and hardcore content in a healthy manner. Aka, midcore content, which should be the level the the vast majority of players should be able to play at.

[Anhra]

The whole reason, why these Forums are being haunted by me, is because i just want to play a Healer who actually has to put in proper effort into his Job, without having his existence being trivialized by self healing tanks, Gacha-level Bosses that live and hit like wet noodles and Dungeons being Marathon Tracks.

Gameplay, is the aspect this Game is severely lacking and it gets only worse since SB, and all that Squeenix thinks, is that they can overbridge the issues with new Content, but sooner or later, that weight will come down on them and when that day comes, we can all wholeheartetly say:


Told you so. Better go play Ultimate.